Kottbusser - A style deserving of revival!

[bhchrist]

Kotty Batch 3 is now kegged and on CO2. Finished at 1.009 and the sample tasted great. A 6+ week lager on this one, as I was waiting for space to clear in the tapper fridge. Pretty doggone clear. It will be nice to have my house brew back on tap again.

 

[unionrdr]

I need to make some more. I drank the last two last night.

 

[JPrather]

Cold Crashing mine now. Finished at about 1.010. Added a few ounces of Honey in primary. Samples taste really interesting, looking forward to it .

 

[unionrdr]

Finally got a comparison video uploaded between mine & the bottle Barley_Bob sent me...

 

[beergolf]

Wow ... You definitely have an infection for it to do that during a pour. aLso your description of tartness like a saison indicates an infection. The recipe should not taste tart.

I got the priming solution cooling now. 4.04 ounces of dextrose to make 2.4 Vco2

That much priming sugar would never make a gusher like that.

Of course two posts up you mention..

I need to make some more. I drank the last two last night.

So what did you use for the video?

I also like the "It smells darker".

What does darker smell like?

 

[unionrdr]

That was a bottle I left in the back of the fridge, along with Bob's. They sat there for a good couple months when my other camera went south. By "darker", I mean like dark fruits, dark sugars...just a nondescript dark aroma. And we did discus the infection/tart thing some time ago. I thought it could've been the temp fluctuations at the time of year I fermented it. Actually stalled a bit, then started up again. No outward signs of infection at all. Not even a lil bit. It did make for a unique beer, though. I need to get another batch going, after the mumme' & Burton barleywine. That way, I'll see if it gets cleaner this time, or?...
And as I mentioned in the video, during my research, one site posted about it's being a sour beer, & was surprised nobody got it? I'm also getting more gushers with other batches lately, so it's time for the ol' soak-n-scrub once more for the bottles.

 

[Barley_Bob]

Finally got a comparison video uploaded between mine & the bottle Barley_Bob sent me...

Oh man! I cant wait to watch this!

I was thinking about Kottbusser the other day. My WLP029 yeast got bacteria in it in the fridge and spoiled. So sad. So I was thinking about doing one with the 036 I have (after I make another alt with it).

 

[unionrdr]

I hope you like my descriptions, even though they're no where near as good as yours. You're description of mine was like that of a BJCP judge! Maybe I do need to take some classes? I'm going to try & duplicate the way the beer came out that first time in the near future. If it comes out more like yours, I'll know then that something was amiss as beergolf suggests. The weather was funky at that point, & was hard to keep the ferment temp above 63F or so. I thought maybe that temp slowing it down a bit might've allowed that bit of souring to take hold?
Plus, that particular bottle had to be a gusher sort of thing. It didn't burst out of the bottle, but all that foam was a surprise. That's the reason I'm draining/rinsing them before going into a bucket of PBW for an hour or so. Then scrub with the bottle brush & onto the tree to dry before storage. So far, every single one is coming out slick as a hound's tooth. No spots or anything. I gotta get more prompt with my bottle cleaning.

 

[bhchrist]

I have not gotten any sour/tart characteristics in the three batches I have brewed. The modification I will make to my next batch is increasing the hopping a bit based on some feedback from entering the beer into a competition. Positive feedback from experienced and well accredited judges including a professional brewer. The common thread was the lack of hop balance, even for a malt forward beer. One comment that stuck out was there was an unfermented wort character to it, which I don't disagree with.

I won't up it by much. It is not intended to be a pils, after all, but I think I have been on the lower end, especially the last batch. I will shoot for the 25-30 range next brew.

Did you all see the info on AHA with the Grimm Brothers recipe and their discussion/hints on brewing a Kottbusser? I had missed that Snow Drop earned a Bronze at GABF.

Recipe Link

6 Tips Link

 

[unionrdr]

I read it at one point, but it's been a few months. I did an average of the recipes I found at that time. What category did you enter it in? It's definitely not a pils, but more like a hybrid of lager & ale(s) to me.

 

[bhchrist]

Entered under Category 27: Historical Beer. I had a Gose I entered as well that could have fit there, but it was one beer per brewer per category, so the Gose went under 28B (mixed fermentation).

 

[unionrdr]

In that case, I'd have to wonder if they knew what a kottbusser was?

 

[bhchrist]

You could be correct, but I provided a fairly detailed description along with the traditional components of the style (Lower IBUs, pils/oat/wheat with honey+molasses and Kolsch yeast).

Looking at my score sheets, the judges were two national level and one master. They picked up the components of the taste profile and provided comments of: inviting; fun interplay of specialty ingredient aromas; wonderfully refreshing, subtle use of specialty malts and a really interesting drink that needs a little attention to get there (last comment from the master judge and pro brewer).

The other comment that I see now is that it was under carbonated and that held it back a bit. It scored a 30.5 so it wasn't bad by any means. I plan on resubmitting it with the 25-30 IBU target (mine was probably closer to 15-20) and tweaking my CO2, assuming I like the product. The feedback was nice to have.

 

[unionrdr]

Interesting responses, but they still leave me wondering how much modern equivalents influenced there thoughts & words. Modern comparisons, as it were? I primed mine to 2.4 Vco2, with IBU of 20.1. Maybe up the bittering and Vco2 a hair? I'd just need to bump the bittering charge a hair to 25 IBU's, since 2.4 Vco2 is plenty for the style. The higher IBU might give a bit more crispness with the WL029 yeast used.

 

[bhchrist]

Could very well be. Really hard for any of us to know or not be influenced, lacking a true historical sample. My guide at this point is making something I enjoy drinking. The master judge had an comment about the the lower hopping was a little unusual in a pils based German beer, not that it was incorrect or a flaw. Another judge thought a bit more on the IBU front. I am with you that I looking at very minor tweaks. My keg may not have been on CO2 long enough to get to the full 2.4/2.5 target and I may have had my keg set at 10 psi, rather than 12, which would have been closer to 2.3 Vol. when I bottled. Carbonation is fine when I drink it now at around 2.4/2.5, so it may have been a timing/keg setting thing.

This batch did taste a bit more malt heavy than my previous two, so I may have been a bit under in my hopping. The recipe can certainly hold up to a few more IBUs without losing its target character, IMO.

 

[unionrdr]

I think so, too. Just a hair more IBU's. Mine was a pilsner lager color. But the flavor was more like ancestor-proto-pils, in my opinion. The video I did between mine & Barley_Bob's made'em look a bit amber. 2.4 Vco2 seems to me to work fine for the style.

 

[Larsccw]

So let me start out by saying thank you for all your efforts in posting in this thread and the work it took to get to where this thread has gone up to now.

I am planning to brew a Kottbusser for the first time. I have two particular questions.

The first, what % of each Honey and Molasses would you recommend using? I see the initial % being both in the range of 1.2% to 1.5% of each, but I also see it mentioned up to as high as the 3% range. What in anyone's opinion that has brewed this style of beer is the suggestion on the Honey and Molasses % in the recipe.

My second question is when to add the Honey and Molasses? What have been the experiences when adding them at Flameout? and What have been the experiences when added them in secondary?

And one last bonus question: What has been the experience in Competitions in the 2015 BJCP Guidelines as a Cat 27 Historical Beer? Any insight on those experiences and comments that they have gotten?

Thanks in advance!

 

[unionrdr]

I added 1.3ozs clover honey & .6oz of Value Time unsulphured golden molasses after primary was done. I let that ferment out to where SG was steady, but some parts of my notes are MIA?
The honey & molasses seems to be something added for flavor complexity in my opinion. Perhaps a bit of color? Here's a shot of the first bottle poured...

 

[303Dan]

Cool to see a thread about this style! The only one I've ever had was Grimm Brothers Snow Drop, which I love. I'm gonna have to try to brew one and this thread should be really helpful.

 

[Eric1309]

Anyone have a good partial mash recipe for this

 

[unionrdr]

there's recipes dispersed all through this thread. Look around. But if you don't see it, let me know, I'll post mine.

 

[Eric1309]

I believe I found yours. Have you made any adjustments to your recipe since posting it?

 

[unionrdr]

I might have? Let me take a look?...
OK, here's the recipe I developed in BS2...
****************Kottbusser********************
pb/pm biab---
4 ozs Acid malt
4 ozs Carared
2 ozs Rice hulls
12 ozs Flaked oats- Breiss
3 lbs Bohemian pilsner malt
3 lbs German wheat malt
3lbs liquid pilsner extract
.65 oz Magnum hops, 60 minutes
.65 oz Hallertauer hops, 3 minutes
1 oz Czech saaz hops, 3 minutes
1/2 Whirlfloc tablet, 15 minutes from end of boil
.6 oz golden, unsulphured Molasses, end of primary
1.3 oz honey, end of primary
White Labs 029 Kolsch yeast
* Made a starter for the yeast with 800ml water @ 88F. Cold crashed it 2 days later to settle yeast & trub in starter. Mash crushed grains in 2 1/2 gallons water @ 154F for 1 hour. Batch sparge (aka dunk sparge) in 1 1/2 gallons water @ 168F for 10 minutes, stirring grains in sparge. After hot break & boil starts, add bittering addition & start timer 1 hour. Do all hop additions. Starter should be out of fridge & warming to room temp during boil. 1/2 Whirlfloc tablet should be added with 15 minutes left in the boil. I chill the wort in an ice bath down to about 75F. Then pour through fine mesh strainer into clean, sanitized primary fermenter. Top off to recipe volume with plain spring water in primary of 5 gallons. Take Hydrometer sample for OG measurement. The decant excess wort from starter, stir it up & pour it in. Put lid on with airlock, topping off airlock with sanitizer to the line on the side.
** At this point, I waited until primary was over to take a sanitized 1C measure with the molasses & honey in it, & used the spigot on the fermenter to add a lil fermenting beer to the mixture to thin it. stir with sanitized spoon, then add to fermenter. Allow to ferment out completely before bottling. Bulk prime beer to 2.4 Vco2 with 4.04ozs dextrose, or 114.49 grams.
*** when room temp conditioning of 3 weeks or more is done, put them in the fridge for 2 weeks to simulate lagering. Enjoy!

 

[Eric1309]

I believe it was your recipe that I found and was planning on using. Have you brewed it again and made any changes? This will be my 1st beer brewed not using a kit and using beersmith2.

 

[unionrdr]

Not yet. gotta get the German mumme' going first. Then I'll re-brew this one & the dampfbier. I wanna re-brew the kottbusser recipe as is for repeatability reasons.

 

[Barley_Bob]

I finally watched @unionrdr 's video. I can't believe mine gushed. That's pretty disappointing. But I'm glad you liked it otherwise! It was a pretty darn good beer, and the head retention was amazing. Man. Thinking about it is making me thirsty!

I just changed jobs again (which is really good news), but money has been tight. So, I haven't brewed a lot lately. But I'm still hoping to get back around to this before the weather changes.

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah, me too. It's a darn good beer! But yours didn't gush that much, just a little when I opened it. Mine made head like crazy, & probably would've gushed if I'd just drank it at cool temps right outta the box. It'll be interesting to see what it tastes like with the next brew. I'm going to brew it the same way for repeatability's sake, if for nothing else.

 

[Eric1309]

Thanks looks like recipe changed a little so I'll make the changes. Think I'm going to add the honey and molasses at flameout since I'm going to use raw honey. Look forward to trying this my wife might even like it.

 

[unionrdr]

In my opinion, anyone that likes BMC's should be good to go with this one. Even that dampfbier, for that matter. And idk why the glasses of this beer looked amber orange in the video? They're actually more of a lager/pilsner color. Although I did find scraps of info here & there that spoke of a red version. Idk which may've come first? But the pilsner/lager colored one seems to be prevalent.

 

[myerstyson]

Just ordered the ingredients for my third batch. I'm departing my current assignment in August, so I'll have a big bash in July to drain all my brews with my friends here, and the Kotbusser will be one of the highlighted beers. Don't think I'm going to change anything from the last time I made it. Using local honey for priming was the last change and it turned out great.

 

[JohnnyHa]

I've just read through the entire thread (not so much the linked articles). A fascinating read. Thanks to @unionrdr for pointing it out.

I will look through my German resources (hobbybrauer.de in particular) to see whether there are any experiences with this particular beer style. I had a Kölsch with honey in it from a fellow homebrewer a couple of years ago which was probably the closest I ever drank to a Kottbusser.

I have never used honey because it's so easily overdosed, and I believe most grades in Germany are raw and thus contain all sorts of wild yeasts etc which one does not necessarily want in the beer. That said I know honey is not that unpopular as an ingredient so there is a good degree of knowledge I can plug into. Your descriptions of the style certainly sound appealing, and I fancy brewing this. I might bake the oat flakes prior to brewing (st. this adds a bit of biscuit aroma ).

I also believe the saison-type aroma is an indication that something wild got in there (unlikely it's a saison yeast though).

The molasses sounds interesting too. I prepared some British invert sugar no. 2 using raw moscobado sugar. It was noticeable in the beers I made with it but both beers for various reasons turned out a bit imbalanced.

 

[unionrdr]

Only too glad to share something from my ancestral homeland! I used Unsulphured, golden molasses in that recipe, John. I know it looks dark in the bottle, but it is lighter in color & flavor when added to the beer in secondary. I wondered at that point, if that background flavor might have been the acidulated malt I added? Combined with yeast esters maybe? I want to brew this one again, in the coming months, if for nothing else, as a comparison to that first batch.

 

[JohnnyHa]

I'm struggling a bit with imperial units and also with mathematically converting DME into malt because I'm not used to using either but the 12 oz of acidulated malt in your recipe don't sound excessive. If I have calculated accurately this comes to about 6% acidulated malt in the grist, and I have only recently tasted a red ale of a fellow homebrewer with 8% acidulated malt, and I could not detect any sourness. That was a darker and maltier beer though, so the acidulated malt may have come through more in your beer.

Having said all that, I also looked a bit into the resources I have on historical beer styles. There aren't any posts on this on my "home" forum hobbybrauer.de but I found a few links to old books and discussions, and in the Krünitz Encyclopedia of 1775 there is a mention of Kottbusser. It's been very briefly described as a beer "very similar to the Broyhan but more warming to the stomach" . The Broyhan (named after the inventor) in my understanding was a lightly soured beer, stems from the early 16th century and was also the predecessor of the Berliner Weiße, probably also Lichtenhainer and Gose. They all had (or have, they still exist) some lactobacillus-induced sourness, and as such using acidulated malt is probably the easiest way to replicate this if you don't want to engage in lacto fermentation.

It is certainly very interesting that the beer style goes back a very long way! The Broyhan (as its predecessor), according to Krünitz, was also brewed with various spices, such as clove, cinnamon, coriander and other spices I have never heard of let alone do I know their translation into English. Who knows how it evolved over the centuries though? It appears the records are thin on this point.

I definitely put this beer on my list of ideas, even though I'm not sure whether I will engage in lacto-induced fermentation. Your descriptions sound so tongue-tickling that I simply have to try, I guess.

It's quite fascinating that Randy Mosher has engaged in this beer style also. One of his recipes (Dick's Elixir Wheat Porter) was picked up by a German homebrewer, eventually a several-stage adaptation of the recipe ended up at Schneider brewery, and they produced one of their annual special beers from it. So it wouldn't be the first time that a long-forgotten beer style comes back here via the US!

 

[unionrdr]

Right on all counts, style-wise. I gotta see if I still have the links to my research after old computer's hard drive got the click of death. They said about the same thing.
And if you want to check out gruit ales, with herbs, spices & medicinal plant subs for herbs/spices, I have a couple threads about Mumme, in recipes/ingredients & this forum. It goes back to at least 1392!

 

[JohnnyHa]

I've already spotted the Mumme thread. For the time being at least, I won't engage in it. Information overflow!

I keep finding old reference books but they're not easy to decipher. In most cases they are written in Fraktur (an old German writing type), and they also use units I don't know much about.

I'm gradually ploughing through the links that you provided in this thread. The one referring to Ron Pattinson is certainly very interesting as that seems to be one of the base recipes for all the other recipes that came after. I even managed to dig out the original source (Schmidt, 1853, p.446) that Ron is referring to. Ron has done great work here, and so have you.

What intrigues me is definitely anything that refers to the actual yeast or yeast/lactobacillus blend etc. that may have been used for fermentation. The older sources clearly point to a sour beer, the one from 1853 is less clear about that. I think in 1853 Pasteur's work with microscopes had not taken hold yet and bottom-fermented Pilsner with its clean taste profile had probably just about begun to take off, so from that point I think it's not unfair to assume that the "yeast" that was used may have been a blend and/or inadvertently contaminated with lactic acid bacteria. In particular, as the beer style is still being described as "similar to Broyhan" (but who knows for sure whether Broyhan was still a sour beer by then?).

I'll keep digging... into a new source from the 1830s...

 

[JohnnyHa]

The 1830s source (Johann C. Leuchs, 1831, p.337) hasn't revealed much more. I think the recipe is the same or almost the same as the one from Schmidt / Pattinson but at least this shows that the beer was made like that over an extended period of time. Once again, I'm struggling with the units here.

However, I did find a table with indications of sourness (I hope I'm not repeating anything here that's been covered already - the thread is 36 pages long and, whilst I've read everything, I've done so in a relatively short space of time). Again, Ron Pattinson has done the legwork here: German month - I'm not sure what the parameter "acidity" actually means but it appears that Broyhan and Kottbusser were at least comparable to each other and much more acidic than Braunbier (brown beer). Alas, the table does not contain any acidity values on Gose / Berliner Weiße. Does anybody know more about this? I think I've read on this thread that the acidity level was discussed but I can't remeber the details now. Perhaps I'll also ask Ron whether he has any more information on that.

So I think it's not only completely justified to have some sour kick in a Kottbusser but it's almost a trademark feature to the style. Whether that amounts to mouth-puckering sourness lambic or gose-style or whether a certain freshness is enough I don't know. I guess any sourness is ok here?

 

[unionrdr]

Check out the threads on Gose on here. Acidulated malt is put on top of the mash for the usual mash time. Then drain, sparge & boil as usual. Gotta look at'em again for the specifics, but it does give a little sourness/tartness on the back. That's about the level of sour/tart I had on the Kottbusser, as I felt that level was what records intended?
Also, after all the research I've done, I began to think that WLP029 Ale/kolsch yeast most closely approximates the sort of dual-purpose yeasts they used centuries ago? It was most often described as fermenting ales or lagers, depending on the temperature of the fermentation, at least initial fermentation. White Labs 029 is from a particular brewhause in Cologne that ferments best @ 65-69F, & gives a lager-like flavor balance, along with a bit of crispness on the back when served chilled like a lager. Hence my decision to ferment the Kottbusser with it. To get as close as modern yeasts can to what may've been used in earlier centuries that they didn't say.

 

[beergolf]

A couple of ounces of acidulated malt, like you used in your recipe, does not give any sour flavor at all. So the tartness you were tasting came from another source. Most lightly a slight infection.

I use 4-5 oz in almost any lighter colored beer to adjust mash pH, and those brews are not sour/ tart. A gose made with acidulated malt uses 20-25% of the grain bill to produce a light tart taste. I have tried that method of making a gose and it was only slightly tart. So to get a sour or tart flavor from acidulated malt requires a big portion of the grain bill.

 

[unionrdr]

I'm not doubting it. I just didn't see the usual culprits of infection? And it didn't get any worse, as infections can often do. I'm at a loss except for some off-beat reaction? And the beer was quite clear, no cloudy funk that was unusual. Just that saison-like barnyard funky tartness, just a little on the back.
Here's a representative pic of it in the glass;

 

[beergolf]

You did have a slight gusher infection in your tasting video when you posted that one. That is probably where the tart/ sour came from. Definitely not from a few ounces of acidulated malt.

And the beer was quite clear, no cloudy funk that was unusual. Just that saison-like barnyard funky tartness, just a little on the back.
Here's a representative pic of it in the glass;

Looks have nothing to do with taste. I brew a lot of sours and bretted up saisons. They are perfectly clear, in fact maybe even more clear than most brews, but have the sour or barnyard funk taste. Cloudly has nothing to do with funk.